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Socorro encounter
|date=Friday, April 24, 1964, 5:50 p.m. |contactee=Sergeant Lonnie Zamora |encounter=off , South of |coordinates= |about= }} :Please note: This article uses Wikipedia content, but has been formatted in good faith of Zamora. Wikipedia presents its version of the incident as dubious. The Socorro encounter, or ,NASA’s Unexplained Files, The Lonnie Zamora incident concerns the sighting of a UFO and two of its occupants by a 31-year old police officer, Lonnie Zamora, on Friday, April 24, 1964,UFO Casebook, Socorro, New Mexico Landing (Lonnie Zamora) 1964 by Billy Booth at about 5:50 p.m., on the outskirts of . Close encounter Alone in his patrol car, Sergeant Lonnie Zamora was in pursuit of a speeding car on highway 85, due south of Socorro, New Mexico, on April 24, 1964, at about 5:45 p.m., when he saw a flame in the distance to the southwest. It was low on the horizon about 1/2 mile or a mile away. The flame seemed significant because it was "bluish orange" long, narrow, and funnel-shaped. Knowing of a dynamite shack in that vicinity, he became worrie if what he was seeing, was the result of a car accident. Zamora broke off the chase and went to investigate. Proceeding southwest toward the initial flame, Zamora noticed a shiny object "about 150 to 200 yards" away (on ground) thinking it was a car. The shiny object was "like aluminum — it was whitish against the mesa background, but not chrome". As Zamora was approaching in his police car, he observed two persons standing close to it, one of whom seemed to notice him with some surprise and gave a stare. As he was pulling up to the roadside, meaning to help, he only caught a brief sight of the two persons wearing white coveralls. "These persons appeared normal in shape — but possibly they were small adults or large kids." Zamora radioed dispatch, stopped the car and got out. Getting a closer look, he was able to give a more detailed description of the object. "Oval in shape ... smooth — no windows or doors ... Noted red lettering of some type. Insignia was about 2½' high and about 2' wide I guess. Was in middle of object ... Object still like aluminum-white." As Zamora was approaching by foot, the object which stood on four "legs" slanted outwards to the ground, gave a loud roaring sound (different from a blast sound). It startled him so bad, that he ran in the opposite direction to seek cover putting "his head to the ground, and covering his face with his arms." The sound lasted for probably 10 seconds, changing from a high frequency to low a frequency, then stopped. As soon as the roaring sound terminated, Zamora looked up to see the object ascending. When it felt clear, he ran back to the patrol car. As he was radioing Nep Lopez, he observed the following: "the object seemed to lift up slowly, and to "get small" in the distance very fast. It seemed to just clear the Box Canyon or Six Mile Canyon Mountain. It disappeared as it went over the mountain. It had no flame whatsoever as it was traveling over the ground, and no smoke or noise." Having intercepted Zamora's earlier radio transmission, State Police Sergeant Sam Chavez arrived at the scene just after the craft disappeared into the sky. Chavez did not see the object. Disclosure Within hours, word of Zamora's encounter had reached the news: many people had heard the radio traffic, including a few reporters. Within days, reporters from the Associated Press and United Press International were in Socorro. Members of civilian UFO study group APRO were on the scene within two days, as were officers representing the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book. NICAP investigators appeared the following Tuesday. The first NICAP investigator was Ray Stanford, who would later write a detailed book account of his investigation. The event and its body of evidence is sometimes deemed one of the best documented and most perplexing UFO reports. It was immediately investigated by the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and , and received considerable coverage in the mass media. It was one of the cases that helped persuade astronomer J. Allen Hynek, one of the primary investigators for the Air Force, that some UFO reports represented an intriguing mystery. After extensive investigation, the Air Force's Project Blue Book was unable to come up with a conventional explanation and listed the case as an "unknown".Wikipedia, References Category:New Mexico